Results
1 Ker, Anthony 2361 6 W 5+ B 7+ W 8+ B 2+ W 9+ B 6+ 2 Dive, Russell 2344 5 B14+ W 6+ B 3+ W 1- B 8+ W 9+ 3 Brockway, Andrew 1749 4 B19+ W10+ W 2- B 7= W 5= W 8+ 4 Aldridge, Alan 1769 4 W18+ B 5- W 7+ B 8- W11+ B13+ 5 Riley, Tim 1809 4 B 1- W 4+ B14+ W 6= B 3= W12+ 6 Jackson, Ross 1929 3.5 W13+ B 2- W11+ B 5= W10+ W 1- 7 Sellen, Ian 1929 3.5 B12+ W 1- B 4- W 3= B17+ B16+ 8 Pomeroy, Arthur 1997 3 B16+ W 9+ B 1- W 4+ W 2- B 3- 9 Forster, William 1867 3 W17+ B 8- W13+ W10+ B 1- B 2- 10 Nijman, Brian 1997 3 W11+ B 3- W15+ B 9- B 6- W14+ 11 Farrington, Lawrenc 1744 3 B10- W12+ B 6- W16+ B 4- W17+ 12 Fernando, Ransith 1500 3 W 7- B11- W18+ B17+ W13+ B 5- 13 Whittle, Jonathon 1552 2 B 6- W19+ B 9- W14+ B12- W 4- 14 Jhurani, Anil 1656 2 W 2- B17+ W 5- B13- W16+ B10- 15 Roberts, Mike 1700 1 bye= bye= B10- . . . 16 Veldhuizen, Matt 1603 1 W 8- B18+ W17- B11- B14- W 7- 17 Theodosiou, Andreas 1385 1 B 9- W14- B16+ W12- W 7- B11- 18 Sknar, Andriy 0 0 B 4- W16- B12- . . . 19 Palmer, Luke 1186 0 W 3- B13- . . . .
Report
Ian Sellen reports;
The Fischer Random club event took place for 3 weeks from 5th April to 19th April, 6 rounds with 2 rounds per night.
For those of you who don’t know how Fischer Random works, it’s where the pieces on the back rank are jumbled up using a computer program – the only rules being that Bishops must be on opposite colours, and the King must be positioned between the 2 Rooks so that castling is possible on both sides. Theoretically, all your opening knowledge becomes useless!
Many thanks to Bill Forster for the random position generator, as an extension to his (world-famous!) Tarrasch interface. We were very privileged to have in Wellington one of Bill’s international Tarrasch correspondents, Ransith Fernando from Sri Lanka, for these last 3 weeks – Ransith was able to play in the tournament and acquitted himself very honourably.
Playing Fischer Random is characterised by a pretty long think before the first move (but not too long, as there are only 25 minutes on the clock), as you decide how you are going to get all your pieces developed, and where your and your opponent’s weaknesses and strengths lie. If you can survive the first few moves, often the game ends up looking quite normal! Another big characteristic of the game is the strangeness of castling, where the King can in one move be whisked away from mortal danger on one side of the board to the peace and tranquillity of the other. Very often we heard laughter from both players as something like this happened. (That wasn't laughter - that was a wail of despair as my fabulous sacrificial attack against Ker evaporated when he bamboozled me by castling his king from c1 to g1 - Ed.)
Altogether 19 players participated in the event – Fischer Random is not to everyone’s taste, and we had 3 dropouts, so 16 players finished. Our top players, Anthony Ker and Russell Dive, were playing, and kept the standard high. Although Fischer Random can throw up some interesting results, Anthony and Russell were clearly in command of this form of chess, and between them dominated from start to finish.
Indeed, the title can be said to have been decided from the result of the match between these two players in the 4th round, which Anthony won. Overall, Anthony won the event with 6 out of 6, with Russell coming second on 5/6. I can’t really comment on anyone else’s games, as in these rapid games I don’t get to wander around and observe much, but my own standard of play was pretty bad, particularly in my game against Anthony. I ended up much higher placed than I deserved.
Equal 3rd place was shared between Andrew Brockway, Alan Aldridge and Tim Riley, all of whom played well above their nominal rating. Andrew Brockway in particular impressed, as indeed he did at the same event last year. This year his victims included Arthur Pomeroy and Brian Nijman, he also professed himself a little dissatisfied with his draw against me, and, from my observation, was unlucky only to get a draw against Tim Riley too.